Education A Big Part Of Red Cross' Katrina Relief Efforts

Posted February 28, 2006 8:39 a.m. EST

GULFPORT, Miss. — With another hurricane season just four months away, many Mississippi Gulf towns and cities that were hit by Hurricane Katrina nearly six months ago are still trying to clean up debris and rebuild.

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The American Red Cross is also gearing up for another hurricane season with its educational campaign, which was designed to make people aware that if a storm heads their way, they need to evacuate.

"We're almost to the sixth-month anniversary from Katrina, but we're fewer than four months to the next hurricane season," said Paige Roberts, with the Southeast Mississippi chapter of the American Red Cross.

With all the debris around, and with people living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, getting out may be even more important this upcoming season.

"I hope that while there were very hard lessons to learn, this next hurricane season will show we did learn them," Roberts said. "But we are wiser, even more painfully so, but we are wiser for what has happened to us."